


After The Battle (Is It Time to Move On?)

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Multi, POV Steve Rogers, Polyamory, Post-Endgame, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22246057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: “You know you love them,” Tony said.“Of course I do. They’re my three best friends.”“You know you’reinlove with them.”Steve picked up his glass of water and took a sip, pointedly ignoring Tony, who was not helping at all.Tony kept going. “You think you’ll lose them if you tell them, that you’ll have to pick. Did it ever occur to you maybe you wouldn’t?”-Or, the battle with Thanos is over, the world is at peace and now Steve has way too much time to figure out his own mess.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 95
Collections: Holly Poly 2019





	After The Battle (Is It Time to Move On?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts).



Steve couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. It felt like years ago, maybe before Thanos had snapped his fingers for the first time. Maybe even before then, back before the Accords had landed in front of them, before Peggy had died, before everyone had started hurtling words, and then weapons, at each other.

It was stupid really. He knew that. Or at least the rational part of his brain knew that. For the first time in as long as he could remember, none of them were running. None of them were fighting. None of them were _missing_.

And maybe that was the problem.

He tried to sleep, he really did. Dozes here and there. A few minutes every now and then. But without fail, every time he laid down, every time he closed his eyes, he watched them vanish. Bucky. Then Sam. Then Nat.

And every time, his eyes would fly open and he would lay there, heart beating frantically in his chest, pulse racing, terror bringing every nerve in his body to life. And every time this happened, he would find himself jumping up and racing down the hall and standing outside each of their bedroom doors, just listening to the sound of each of them breathing, to assure himself they were still _here_ , still okay, still with him.

But that didn’t stop the fear that one day he would wake up and they would be gone. One of them or all of them. That one day they would just vanish, and he would be left, once again, mourning for something he couldn’t have.

“You know what would probably help you sleep better at night?”

Steve ignored the smirk on Tony’s face, and his question. He wasn’t sure why he thought it was a smart idea to confide in him anyway. Maybe because the three people he normally told most things to were the three people he most definitely couldn’t tell. 

Maybe also because he knew Tony knew how it felt to fear you were going to lose the ones you cared about.

“Just tell them you love them,” Tony continued, obviously not needing an actual answer from Steve.

Steve tried to glare at him, though he had a feeling he didn’t do nearly a good enough job at it. Tony looked entirely nonplussed.

“You know you love them,” Tony said.

“Of course I do. They’re my three best friends.”

“You know you’re _in_ love with them.”

Steve picked up his glass of water and took a sip, pointedly ignoring Tony, who was not helping at all.

“Look,” Tony said, his voice losing its teasing edge all of a sudden. “Worrying about losing them is normal. You _did_ lose them. All of them. And it wasn’t that long ago either. But you’re making it worse on yourself by not telling them.”

“I’m …” Steve tried to interrupt, to protest, but Tony held up a hand.

“You think you’ll lose them if you tell them, that you’ll have to pick.” Tony shrugged. “Did it ever occur to you maybe you wouldn’t?”

Steve narrowed his eyes at his friend again. This time the glare felt real. “That,” he said, “is never going to happen.”

•••

Night had fallen again, and Steve was still not sleeping. Now it was Tony’s words that were haunting him. _“You think you’ll lose them if you tell them, that you’ll have to pick. Did it ever occur to you maybe you wouldn’t?.”_

Was Tony right? No, he couldn’t be. It was impossible. He couldn’t be in love with three different people and have all three people. He would have to choose.

He sat up in bed and silently got to his feet. Opening his bedroom door, he saw the hallway leading to all their rooms was dark. Natasha had disappeared first — she always did these days, and Steve always felt helpless when she did. He knew there were things she wasn’t telling any of them, of what happened when she fell from the cliffs of Vormir, before he traded the Soul Stone to get her back, but he didn’t know how to reach her, and it seemed the others didn’t either.

Sam had headed off to bed about an hour after Natasha had disappeared, waving goodnight to Steve and Bucky. Steve had watched him go, heart heavy. Before the Snap, before the fighting, it had been hard. The three of them — Steve, Nat, Sam — on the run, hiding from everyone and everything, but at night, lying in the dark, sharing a small bed in a shabby rundown hotel room — slipping out of bed in the middle of the night to skype with Bucky — he had almost been happy. 

Now, Sam was distant too, caught up in trying to help people adjust to a world that had moved on for five years while they were gone, and Steve felt like their friendship — their whatever you wanted to call it — had also taken a hit.

But one thing hadn’t taken a hit. One thing had grown stronger. Natasha had disappeared, Sam had disappeared, but Bucky had remained, sitting by his side on the couch, both of them stretched out and grumbling about some war movie playing on the television and how very wrong it was.

And sometime during their grousing and laughing and just being, Bucky’s hand had moved and their fingers had touched, and the same electricity that had been there maybe forever had spread through Steve’s body, and he curled his fingers around Bucky’s so Bucky would know that he felt it too.

They hadn’t done anything yet. Hadn’t kissed or touched more than a brush of a hand or a bump of a shoulder. They both wanted to, Steve knew that was clear, but they were waiting. But Steve sometimes didn’t know what they were waiting for. But at other times, like tonight, when he crept down the hallway, stopping at each door and listening for the signs of life from the person inside, a tiny voice in his head reminded him of the harsh truth. No matter what Tony said would happen, Steve knew that as soon as he did something with someone — whether it be Bucky or Sam or Nat — he knew that the line would be drawn, the choice would be made, and there it would stay, and Steve knew he wasn’t ready to live with that decision yet, wasn’t ready to _make_ that decision yet.

He stopped outside Bucky’s room, the one farthest down the hall from his own, and sank silently to the floor. Memories were stirring in his mind. Memories he had tried for so long not to think about.

The middle of the night. Natasha sneaking in to bed beside him. Her lips on his. His fingers between her legs. Her soft breaths in his ear. 

He and Sam on a living room couch. Sweating, panting. Lips smacking against each other roughly. Clothes coming off.

He and Bucky in a tiny little bed, trying to stay quiet. His lips wrapped around Bucky’s cock. Bucky’s hand holding him down.

Sam and Natasha in a small hotel room. Fucking Natasha in the bathroom. Fucking Sam on the bed when Natasha went to find them food.

Ashes on the ground. Sam’s. Bucky’s. Sobbing in Natasha’s arm. Natasha sobbing in his. Pulling her away from her desk when she refused to do anything but work. Holding her against him as she slept, whispering in her ear that she was going to be okay, that they were both going to be okay.

The look on Clint’s face when he returned from Vormir. The realization that Natasha wasn’t there. That all three of them were now gone.

And then Bucky and Sam and hugging and laughing and crying.

And then a stone. A tiny yellow stone. And then Natasha in his arms, weak and thin and pale and barely breathing. But alive.

All three of them alive. Again. With him.

Steve’s head titled back, knocked against the wall. How could he pick? But at the same tome … how could he not pick? He wasn’t sure either was a choice he could live with.

•••

The days dragged by, and the distance between the four of them seemed to spread ever wider. Everyone kept to themselves. Meals, when they happened to be there together, were spent in silence. None of this was what Steve had pictured when Tony had mentioned, a couple days after they defeated Thanos for good, that he had an old apartment in Brooklyn that was easily enough room for three people if they wanted it. Back then, they had moved in eagerly — or so Steve had thought. And then when Natasha came back, it was never any question that she would move in with them too.

The three people Steve loved around him every day. It should have been wonderful.

“Maybe they’re waiting for you to say something,” Tony suggested, but even though a part of Steve thought maybe there was a chance he was right, another part wanted to fly into a panic at the idea of saying something. What if they all looked at him like he was crazy and got up and left?

But he was going to have to say something soon. Things between them all were getting worse, and he couldn’t go on like this. Not having them all would be better than the way things were.

But he never got the chance to say something. 

It was a Friday night and for the first time since they had moved in together, the four of them were in the kitchen eating dinner at the same time. Steve had made spaghetti that he had shared with everyone, and Sam had done up some garlic bread to go with it. But apart from muttered thanks and a “Can you pass the bread?”, everyone was avoiding everyone else, just staring down at their food.

And then Sam spoke.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Three other heads shot up to look at him. Sam dropped his fork, making a clanging sound that seemed to echo in Steve’s ears.

“I can’t be in the same room — the same apartment — as the three of you and pretend I don’t care.” He turned to Steve. “I want to kiss you,” he said, then turned to Bucky. “I want to sleep in your arms.” He turned last to Nat. “And I want _you_ to let me — let us — take care of you! You’re not okay, but we can make you better.”

He stood up then. Steve stared at him, his words seemingly on echo around his head. Sam wanted him. But he also wanted Bucky and Nat, too.

He looked at the others.

“I want that too,” Bucky said.

“I want that,” Steve managed.

They all looked at Natasha. Steve thought for a moment she wasn’t going to react at all, but then she nodded.

“Well, shit,” Steve said. “Why didn’t anyone say so before?”

•••

They were all laying in Steve’s bed, because it was the biggest. Bucky was next to him, his head on Steve’s shoulder. Sam was on the other side of Steve. Natasha was lying across Sam with her head in Steve’s lap, and Sam was rubbing her arm while Steve ran his fingers through her hair.

They had a lot to work out — how exactly this was going to work, how to help Natasha, how to help each other, how to balance what everyone needed from everyone else — but right now Steve wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about Bucky’s touch and Sam’s smile and Natasha’s laugh, and his chest was warm and he thought the happiness he was feeling must be radiating out of him and warming the others because, for once, everyone seemed content.

Despire every misgiving he’d had, he had been wrong (and Tony, who would never let him live it down, had been right) — he didn’t have to choose. He really could have them all.


End file.
